Page 44 of Resurrecting the Witch
“So here I was, a twenty-four-year-old witch living in this paranormal paradise, not knowing how lucky I truly had it. I went into Seattle and Vancouver occasionally, but I hadn’t wanted to most of the time unless Drew and I needed to get away from our families for some rebellion time. Matteo and Massimo would tag along sometimes, but it was mostly just us. Again, we went clubbing with the humans very rarely. I was treated like a princess here as the only heir. My aunties and uncles had partners and thought about kids occasionally but had so much more time to figure it out. My grandparents had six kids, and I was fulfilling the next generational duty for the magick so there wasn’t any rush. Granted, I wasn’t spoiled as often as one might assume, but I had the four best grandparents and so many aunties and uncles. And I had the Hemlocks which were like a second set of parents and siblings I’d never had. I was surrounded by love on all sides; it was lovely.”
She took a deep breath and her hands started to tremble a bit. I took them in my own to comfort her. I would never get used to how Cliona’s whole body eased at my touch, it made the fae male instincts in me preen with delight that I brought my mate comfort. “I say all that to let you know I was loved and cared for, so I shouldn’t have fallen for my mother’s trap. She ran into Drew and I ‘randomly’ at some club we’d gone to that was off a pier into the Puget Sound of Seattle. We had been dying to go and were so excited when we got there. Drew had his guard up immediately, but my mother seemed genuinely shocked to see us. It had been so long ago that I hadn’t remembered how she’d treated me in that moment. All I saw was my mother, her date, and her date’s son.” She gulped.
“Hunter?”
“Hunter Jacobs from the Jacobs coven in the Yukon. I hadn’t thought to suspect there was anything more than a random happenstance, my mother ignored me except for the initial introduction, but Hunter seemed to like me, and he wasn’t unattractive so I let him dance with me for the night. Drew was unimpressed but knew I’d have his ass if he tried to anything to me.” She rolled her eyes. “Hunter was trying to get up my shirt in less than an hour. He was smooth with his words, and I really enjoyed sex, so I just went with it.”
I swiped my thumb across the back of her hand in what I hoped was soothing motions despite the rage I was feeling at the thought of another male touching what was mine.
“He asked for my number at the end of the night and I gave it to him. He texted me constantly and asked to come visit the famous Ó Cuinn HOMES island. I initially turned him down but then brought the idea up to the grandparents who were all shocked I’d met another witch at a random club in Seattle. I hadn’t told them about seeing my mother, not wanting to bring up their daughter that had tried to murder their only grandchild. That was clearly a mistake, one thankfully Drew never threw in my face as an I Told You So moment, because he had totally told me so. Regardless, we planned out a visit for some senior ranking members of the Jacobs coven to visit so his parents could meet my grands, and so on. That was another mistake because of course my mother was dating Hunter’s father, so she had come along.”
She laughed a bit before continuing. “You should have seen Gran’s face when she saw her daughter exit the boat that brought them over. She glared at me and I thought for sure I would get my ass whooped even though I was way too old for that. The meeting went great. Hunter expressed his desire to court me to both families. His family immediately agreed to the match, mine were holdouts for obvious reasons. My mother even apologized for how she’d treated me as a kid and promised she’d gotten her act together since and had been doing better in general. She said she was less angry and found the Jacobs coven offered her a place to gather herself. She’d found love again, blah blah blah.”
I nodded along. It was hard listening to a story knowing how it ended.
“I dated Hunter for six months before he proposed. I didn’t want to accept, but I also didn’t want to say no either? I was confused, and even though I wasn’t completely obsessed with Hunter, I thought it would be a good move for our coven to unite with his. Guille has since helped me realize I was probably doing it in a weird way to appease my mother or gain her approval, which really pisses me off, but it was what it was. We were engaged.”
I felt her energy shift into something darker and I knew I wouldn’t like what she’d say next. “Hunter was staying with me for the weekend, something we hadn’t tried yet to see if he would like living here. The second night he was here, the rest of the Jacobs coven showed up with my mother and reinforcements of all kinds.”
I grabbed her hand holding the tongs as she mixed the salad more aggressively and made her put them down and turn to me. I turned the sauce and boiling water off, the noodles could go feck themselves, and pulled her into the living room to sit on the couch. Schmidt jumped up immediately and purred his way into a ball on her lap. The little guy rubbed his head against her breasts and nuzzled in as she took a gulp of her newly filled wine I hadn’t noticed she grabbed.
“Sorry, this next part is hard for me to get through.” She looked up at me and I saw the tears lining her eyes. “The entire Town Square was a bloodbath. After it was all done, I remember thinking I could never get the stains out, the literal blood of innocents coated every building, every section of cement, even the light posts.” She shook her head and brought herself back, with three deep breaths I knew Dr. Luna had taught her. She was doing so good. I squeezed her hand to let her know I was still with her. “I wasn’t woken by the screaming or the mayhem or the sound of my entire family getting murdered. I was woken by the most delicious feeling thrumming deep in my blood. My body felt like it was soaring, and I was filled with this happiness, this weight, this immense power I had never felt before in my life. I had always been a powerful witch, part of being the eldest daughter and all that, but I had never feltthiskind of power. And that’s when I knew something had to be wrong.
“I remember leaving my bedroom, not even realizing Hunter wasn’t there. Then the screams registered. I made my way out into the Town Square to see sporadic fires, bodies on the street of residents I’d grown up with, even kids. It was horrific. The most horrific thing I’d ever seen.”
She started shaking and I squeezed her hand, feeling her calm once more. I tried to interrupt her. “You don’t need to—”
“Yes, I do. And I can. I have worked on this with Guille. I know I can do it, just keep holding my hand; you calm me down.” I ignored how I wanted to kiss her for sharing that with me, but I let her continue because I knew she needed to get this out. “I was completely frozen and cold all over. I don’t remember finding Hunter’s older brothers, but I do remember their necks snapping with one flick of my wrist. I don’t remember how I found Hunter’s aunt and uncle, who had had me over for dinner so many times before then, but I remember relishing in the feel of my own nails slicing their necks open. I remember wanting to bathe in their blood. I already knew my entire family were dead at that point. Despite the magick telling me in no words, I couldn’t feel them anymore. Most don’t know how a coven functions, but it isn’t just name or blood or kinship, it was a spell binding us all together. The spell tied us to one another on a soul-deep level, and I knew every soul of my family, every aunt, uncle, cousin, grandparent. So I also knew when their souls were no longer attached to mine. They were gone. They were on the other side of the veil and not here anymore. They’d left me.
“All because of Hunter fucking Jacobs.”
She bristled at his name and squeezed my hand tighter. I continued offering her my strength so she could continue.
“Which left me, a naïve twenty-five-year-old, with all of their magick. I knew how I would use it to start my reign. Drew found me amidst the chaos; I saw in his eyes and knew he had lost people too. We didn’t need words, we simply hunted. He shifted into his wolf form and followed me around all the island, scenting the Jacobs coven members that stayed and tried to take over my island. The members of his fucking coven that murdered my own. We found more bodies, and so many more victims of this useless treachery that it made me sick, until it just made me numb. Fortunately, most of the younglings had found safe haven in the school while their parents defended it, but I hadn’t learned that until later. I was operating under the assumption they killed everyone. I hadn’t wanted to think about all the family lines that ended because Hunter, or my own fucking mother, used me to get here.”
“This wasn’t your fault.”
She looked at me as if I were dumb as hell for interrupting her, so I just squeezed her hand and nodded for her to keep going. “Drew helped me. He helped me hunt down the others, tearing into them like my own personal wolf hound. We found other surviving families, all of whom are still here and helped me rebuild little by little. It took about six months for us to clean up everything and get settled back into a routine. Which is when Drew and some of the other survivors approached me about re-opening HOMES for new residents. Drew knew Guillermo was looking for a place to settle down and that he could help me with applicants. We’d already decided to do things a bit differently than how my grandparents envisioned. We were caught unawares once, too trusting of the outside, so we would run a tighter ship going forward. Applications, background checks, and sometimes references from others. We even decided to let humans in who had been affected by our world and needed a safe space to go. I would vet everyone personally; we would have more programs and be completely self-sufficient so we wouldn’t have to look outside at all.”
“And the rest is history,” I said, not needing her to continue. I couldn’t imagine what she had gone through, but she painted a pretty clear picture of the horror show. I tried to end it, to let her know she shared enough, that I would avenge anyone who did her harm in the future, that she had me now and I would protect this place with the ferocity only a fae warrior could muster.
“The rest is history, or it was when I came back after hunting down every last member of the Jacobs coven and murdering them. Except the children, obviously. I left them to rebuild and one of his cousins who I knew wasn’t a complete piece of shit. The Jacobs coven had been large and had its own issues. The only one I haven’t found yet is my mother. She’d come to the island that night, I knew because she was the one who murdered my grandparents. But she disappeared without a trace.”
Cliona choked on a sob, finally losing control of herself. I pulled her into my lap, which Schmidt was unimpressed by since it meant he had to move. She cried into my chest. “My mother killed her own parents because I had more power than her.”
“No,” I gently corrected her. “She killed your grandparents because she was sick in the mind, Cliona. No rational person would do that to someone they loved, the very people who gave her life. That isn’t your fault.”
She let me hold her for a few more moments in silence before continuing.
“All of that to say, Patrick.” Her glazed-over eyes seemed to come back to the present and I found myself staring at my fierce mate with new understanding into her constant anguish. “I have killed so many witches, that I don’t care if you did when you were ordered to. You knew my grandparents and ultimately when you found a different way available to you, you risked everything you knew to help them. That’s all we can do, and what I’ve realized the last five years in rebuilding HOMES. We are all just doing our best, and if doing your best was saving lives from someone you swore your fealty to, then I can’t really judge you for that, otherwise I’d be condemning myself. Even though I know I am already destined for endless torment beyond the veil for all I’ve done.”
“Bull shite,” I said and lifted her chin up to me. “You are destined for only the best, my Cliona.” I brushed the remaining tears from her eyes and stared into the glassy shine of the vivid green circles of them. I leaned in to press my mouth to hers and she returned my small kiss. “Including the best pasta that I know is the best because I made it.” I paused for her small giggle, which was a lovely sound after hearing her cries only moments ago. “So, I will finish the noodles and make your plate. Then I’m going to feed my mate after she finds the first episode of the Buffy Vampire Huntress show I know I’ll love.”
Chapter 13
“He was only supposed to be on one episode, but the fans liked him so much the creator made a whole storyline for him that you’ll see in the coming seasons.”
“This is the blonde Brit?”
